Francis Maude: As I say, we are committed to continuing those discussions. We had further discussions yesterday, and there will be more next week and the week after. There is much still to be resolved. It was Lord Hutton, Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, who recommended
	the changes, and in order to make public sector pensions sustainable for the future, we need to drive these reforms through.

Nia Griffith: This week we have seen the Government change their mind on the NHS, on sentencing, on student visas and on bin collection, so will the Prime Minister tell us now whether he will change his mind over Government plans to force more than 300,000 women to wait up to two years longer before they qualify for their state pension?

Humanitarian Emergency Responses

Mark Lazarowicz: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for advance sight of the Government’s response to Lord Ashdown’s report. May I advise the House that I am responding today because my right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Secretary of State is currently visiting Sierra Leone? We welcome Lord Ashdown’s important report. I pay tribute to him and to those who worked with him to produce an impressive and excellent set of proposals.
	Over the past year, in Pakistan, Haiti, Chile, Japan, New Zealand and Indonesia, we have seen the terrible destruction caused by a range of natural disasters. In Libya and Ivory Coast, we have seen how humanitarian crises can develop incredibly rapidly, threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people. Lord Ashdown’s report reminds us that the number of humanitarian crises is likely to increase, and we must be ready to respond rapidly and effectively. We welcome the report’s emphasis on working through multilateral organisations. Does the Secretary of State agree that working multilaterally is generally the best way to ensure greater co-ordination and coherence in response to disaster and to prevent it?
	The report recognises that DFID has been widely praised for its leading role in the international humanitarian community. The Secretary of State will know that since 2005 the Department has been one of the leading voices in calling for reforms in the international humanitarian system. We welcome the fact that the Government’s response recognises the need to strengthen international leadership, but what specific steps will he take to bring about that change? Will the Government take the lead in initiating a new round of high-level talks at the UN to push for greater reform, as the Labour Government did back in 2005? Why have the Government rejected a recommendation in the report to encourage the convening of a UN high-level panel to look at ways of improving the international system to face future challenges?
	Our efforts in government also led to an expansion of the important central emergency response fund, and the report says that the fund should be expanded further. We welcome the extra $40 million that the Government announced for the fund in December last year, but can the Secretary of State tell us what the UK is doing to push other donor countries to make a similar substantial contribution? Does he agree that, as well as improvements in its response to disaster, the international community must do more to help to prevent and predict disasters, as Lord Ashdown’s report underlines?
	As we have recently seen in Libya, gaining access to deliver humanitarian relief can be extremely difficult. I pay tribute to the many organisations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Islamic Relief, World Vision and Save the Children, which are often the first to reach those who need help. Will the Secretary of State assure us that he will do all he can to ensure that aid workers can operate in safety and that aid is delivered in a way that ensures its neutrality and impartiality?
	DFID is indeed rightly recognised around the world for its leadership in responding at times of crisis, and I pay tribute to its expert staff. Does the Secretary of State agree that in anticipating and responding to humanitarian emergencies, it is essential to have expert and skilled people? As DFID is reducing its administration budget by a third, can he assure us the necessary investment in humanitarian skills will be made given the scale of such cuts?
	Lord Ashdown’s report recognises that the international humanitarian system is poorly equipped to ensure an equitable response for the most vulnerable—for example, women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities. I welcome what the Secretary of State said in that regard and what the Government say in response to the full report. Will he assure us, however, that the Government will ensure that across the areas identified in the report, women in particular will be fully involved in the response to disaster, wherever it occurs?
	Lord Ashdown’s report underlines the important role that diaspora communities play in responding to disaster, both through remittances and by raising awareness. I am glad that the Secretary of State recognised that in his statement. Can he give us more information on what he will do to ensure that there is greater recognition of the money that hard-working people in people in the UK send home to help people in the developing world?
	The Ashdown report is an important step forward. Labour provided a strong lead on this issue in government, which produced real reform, but we know that there is much more to do. As Lord Ashdown said, humanitarian work
	“cannot be the sticking plaster for a lack of political action”,
	but it can make an important contribution to alleviating suffering around the world. Today’s welcome words need to be transferred into concrete action to ensure that in times of crisis, our aid helps those who need it most.

Andrew Mitchell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome and for his words about the team who constructed the Ashdown report under Lord Ashdown, and about the response from my team, particularly those in DFID’s conflict, humanitarian and security department.
	The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a huge amount of common ground on this matter. In opposition, we long realised that there was a necessity not to be complacent, but to accept that we could do some things better. That is why my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister, some two years before the election, called for a report like this, and why we have carried it out.
	The hon. Gentleman was right to underline that all serious research suggests that the number of disasters will increase by as much as 50% over the next 15 years. That adds additional urgency to the work that we are doing. He was right to make it clear that the right way to lead in these disasters is through the multilateral system. That is why we are determined to play our part in making that system better. The cluster system that operates within it, in which Britain takes a leading role, is the right approach and we will do everything that we can to see that it improves.
	The central emergency response fund was set up by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who is sitting alongside the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), and we supported it strongly in opposition. We think that it works extremely well and that it provides additional and immediate money in the event of a disaster. That is why we have significantly increased resources to the CERF. The additional fund that I announced today for help in the first 72 hours from pre-qualified charities and NGOs will enable us to carry on the principle of that work in, I believe, a more effective way.
	The hon. Gentleman was right to make the point that building in resilience from day one is vital in all the work we do, and that is now happening. He was equally correct about the importance of gaining access for humanitarian relief, which is something that we have called for consistently in Libya and will continue to call for in Syria and South Kordofan in Sudan. He was right that women should always be involved in such work. The role of women as people who suffer from humanitarian disasters on the front line is well understood. We give that issue our strong support through this work.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about remittancing and that there must be transparency in all that we do. As he pointed out, the money that we spend is taxpayers’ money. We are committed to recognising
	that. That is why we published the transparency guarantee early in the lifetime of the Government. When taxpayers’ money was used to alleviate the results of the floods in Pakistan last year, we had a floods monitor online so that people could see how hard-earned British taxpayers’ money was being spent and what relief it was securing.
	In respect of these proposals, I believe that the International Development Committee has announced that it will consider in about a year’s time whether we have enacted what we have said we will do.

Malcolm Bruce: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and Lord Ashdown for his excellent report. On behalf of the International Development Committee, I thank Lord Ashdown for his active engagement with us on two separate occasions when we were preparing our report on the Pakistan floods. I note that the Secretary of State said that he will publish more detail than he could put in the statement on the steps that are being taken to improve the UK response.
	Will the Secretary of State say what role the UK can play in getting UN leadership, not least to ensure that in the most vulnerable countries the UN co-ordinator has both the competence and the line-management authority to execute effective rescue operations? He spoke about the co-ordination of NGOs and lead NGOs. Can he ensure that that is not just a UK response, but that such co-ordination will happen internationally so that NGOs do not get in each others’ way and have the opposite effect to helping in the disaster?

Andrew Mitchell: My hon. Friend is right about the absolute priority that the Government place on supporting such smaller charities. Many people from both sides of the House will have seen them doing brilliant work overseas. There are a number of mechanisms through which they are supported. There is, of course, the global poverty action fund, which will have a fresh round for NGOs and charities in a month or two. ShelterBox, which my hon. Friend mentioned, will be known to many Members. It does a brilliant job and we support it strongly.

Nadine Dorries: The UN has been notoriously slow and unco-ordinated in the past in responding to certain disasters, as a result of the poor leadership that has been identified. Notwithstanding
	the report on the agenda for change by Baroness Amos, can the Secretary of State assure us that his Department will relentlessly keep up the pressure on the UN? The next disaster, God forbid, may come tomorrow, and we need to know that the UN is fit for purpose today.

Jonathan Ashworth: Many communities in my constituency—particularly those from Pakistan and Bangladesh, although I could name many others—have a commendable record of contributing to relief when humanitarian disaster strikes. Given that, can the Secretary of State give us some more details of how he expects to involve diaspora communities in emergency relief work and ensure that their expertise is taken advantage of?

Andrew Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman identifies one of the problems with the relief effort that the international community mounted in Pakistan. Indeed, the Select Committee on which he serves has produced a most valuable report, from which the international system will learn relevant lessons. I think it would be fair to say that as far as Britain’s support was concerned, we were the first country to come in great scale to give strong support to the people of Pakistan in their hours of greatest need. Britain also continually pushed and prodded the international system to up its game. That was what we did at the time, and those are also the tactics that we are using now. The report will be helpful in achieving them.

Martin Horwood: I welcome the Secretary of State’s positive response to my noble Friend’s report. Together with the Government’s pledge to fulfil the 40-year-old promise to spend 0.7% of our national income on development assistance, including the outstanding promise to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, that puts us in a potentially world-leading position in international development and humanitarian assistance. Can he reassure us, though, that the pre-qualification process that he described will not inadvertently disadvantage the smaller local NGOs that are obviously on the ground first and, as the review makes clear, often do an excellent job at very low cost?

Mark Durkan: I welcome the Secretary of State’s thinking on a standing faculty for emergency response, including NGOs. Can he assure us that there will be no tension in practice between the follow-through on the Ashdown review and the follow-through on the previous DFID reviews, which put particular emphasis on buying results? The Ashdown review particularly emphasises resilience, innovation and science, and humanitarian space in areas of conflict, the benefits of which are not always as quantifiable as those of some other measures. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the Ashdown recommendations are not casualties of the results-buying emphasis of previous reviews?

Mike Gapes: In his introduction, the Secretary of State said that “we will intervene directly where the UK can contribute in ways that others cannot”. I welcome that, but will he clarify whether that means intervening for the sake of the responsibility to protect agenda? If so, does he agree that often, humanitarian disasters occur in areas of conflict or failed states, and that we therefore have a responsibility to recognise that we must sometimes act quickly and without the agreement of the relevant Government?

Andrew Mitchell: The answer is that I will and I have. I commend to the hon. Lady the 35-page report which should now be on the internet, and I urge her to have a look at it and respond if she has any additional comments—as I urge all hon. Members to do.

Jim Shannon: All the humanitarian aid we give for natural disasters, such as that in Pakistan, or to countries with civil unrest, such Syria, Egypt and Sudan, is good news. However, the feedback from some of those countries is that those of a Christian faith and in evangelical Churches are at the back of the queue and ignored when it comes to humanitarian aid. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that that two-tier system of assistance will not continue to disadvantage those of that faith in those countries?

Eric Joyce: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I received a letter this morning before I asked the Prime Minister a question about a company called ENRC. The letter was from the solicitors Mischon de Reya and it referred to comments that I made during an Adjournment debate on 23 May. Essentially, it accuses me of a misuse of parliamentary privilege and I ask for your advice on what, if anything, I should do next. It seems to me that if I call someone “a shady middle man”—as I did Dan Gertler, their client—because that is what I believe to be true and a justifiable comment, it is a use of parliamentary privilege rather than a misuse. The letter appears to be an attempt to constrain a Member of Parliament from expressing his views clearly and fairly in this House.

Mr Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for advance notice of his intention to put it to me. My response is twofold. First, if he wishes to make a complaint about the attempted denial of his parliamentary privilege by the firm of lawyers to which he refers, he needs to write to me and I will consider that complaint in accordance with the normal procedure. Secondly, I recall clearly that I was in the Chair for that Adjournment debate on 23 May. If he had been out of order, I would have said so. I did not, because he was not.

Claire Perry: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to designate the Monday after Remembrance Sunday as an annual bank holiday in the United Kingdom with effect from 2012; and for connected purposes.
	This Bill would consolidate and entrench long-term public support for our armed forces. My constituency of Devizes includes many of the Salisbury plain garrison towns and is home to more than 10,000 members of the armed forces and at least the same number of service family members.
	My father, both grandfathers and my great-grandfather served in the British Army. I am therefore particularly proud to wear a poppy in early November, sport various charity wristbands, attend homecomings and parades in both Westminster and Wiltshire, observe the silence at 11 am on Armistice Day, and to lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday. Indeed, laying a wreath at the Devizes war memorial last November was one of the most solemn and thought-provoking moments of my new career as a Member of Parliament. I am also proud to support armed forces day, introduced more than two years ago and held in late June. I know that in all of this support I am joined by Members on both sides of the House and millions of people across the country.
	But I fear that with all of these initiatives and opportunities to show our support we have perhaps fragmented that support—diluted the brand. And many events happen at weekends when working families—as I know for myself—can face as many time pressures as they do during the week, sometimes making their participation in weekend events difficult.
	I am also concerned that while we have seen a real upwelling of support for the armed forces in the last few years, due in no small part to the tireless work of the Royal British Legion who are Britain’s “custodians of remembrance”, as well as the work of charities such as Help for Heroes—headquartered in my constituency—SSAFA and the Army Benevolent Fund, when our soldiers return home from their current operations it may be difficult to keep this momentum going and to ensure that we as a country deliver on our obligations under the military covenant. A day set aside in our busy calendars for remembrance, support and celebration of our armed forces would help to keep the support alive in the future.
	This is not a radical suggestion. Many other countries pay tribute to their armed forces with a national holiday, including the United States, Canada, Russia, France and Israel. Indeed, among the five countries spending the most on their military budgets, only Britain and China do not have a national holiday commemorating their service personnel—but at least in China soldiers get a half-day off on army day.
	With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the House on a 10,000-mile trip to the southern hemisphere and consider Anzac day in New Zealand and Australia. As many Members know, I have the great good fortune to be married to a Kiwi, and it was his reminiscences of Anzac day—a national holiday in
	those countries on 25 April—that contributed to my proposal today. Many young people from down under could tell us in detail about the brutal Gallipoli campaign of the first world war; how many fought, died and were wounded; and how many and who fell from their school. Furthermore, many will have made a pilgrimage to the Dardanelles site. Do you think, Mr Speaker, that if we asked a similar cohort of British young people to name even one first world war battle, let alone the casualty numbers, we would get a similar result? I think not.
	Setting aside a national day of remembrance and celebration would help us all with that collective memory. I have suggested the Monday after Remembrance day as a bank holiday. I would equally be in favour of having the holiday on Armistice day itself, but I am aware that the British Legion has concerns about diluting the long-standing tradition of the silence, and if the Bill is taken forward I would wish to work with the British Legion and other organisations to work out the best day. However, one of these historically resonant dates would be appropriate.
	It is not for me to propose an additional holiday, although I know it would be popular in the country, and I am aware that it would cause concerns for businesses. However, there are clearly some anomalies in the current distribution of bank holidays. This year we have had one bank holiday in January, three in April and two in May, but there is only one more to look forward to—at the end of August—before the Christmas break. Many people think that trading one of the bank holidays—one in May, it has been suggested—for a Remembrance day holiday in November would be a reasonable swap. Members on both sides of the House support this proposal, although my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) said that he would do so on the basis that the holiday be called Wootton Bassett day, which is a suggestion I am, of course, prepared to entertain—I am relaxed about the title.
	The British people support the idea. In a recent YouGov poll, Remembrance day, along with St George’s day, was the favoured date for an additional holiday in Great Britain. Last week I spent the day with young men and women of the British Army, many of whom were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in the next few months. I was deeply moved by the spirit, dedication, determination and quiet courage of those young people. I would like the whole country to have an opportunity to pay tribute to them, their comrades, veterans of the services and those who have fallen, to whom we owe so much. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.
	Question put and agreed  to .
	Ordered ,
	That Claire Perry, Andrew Rosindell, Bob Stewart, Mr Julian Brazier, Kwasi Kwarteng, Mr James Gray, Mr Michael McCann, Mr Dominic Raab, Chris Heaton-Harris, Charlie Elphicke, Dan Jarvis and John Glen present the Bill.
	Claire Perry accordingly presented the Bill.
	Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed (Bill 203).

John McDonnell: Amendment 53 relates to the abolition of the social fund and addresses a number of the concerns that Members raised on Second Reading and in Committee.
	The Government propose to abolish key elements of the social fund—the community care grants and the crisis loans—and to replace them with support through local authorities. The social fund, particularly the crisis loan, is critically important to many Members in representing their constituents. That is the case not only in my constituency but across the country. These mechanisms support people in desperate need and at key times in their lives, and they are safety nets when people are facing essential expenditure that they cannot meet. My concern is that many organisations have made representations to the Government, Committee members and Members of the House urging that the social fund should not be abolished without robust and effective alternatives put in its place. The proposal should certainly be fully explored and tested before any change is made.
	Social funds have been critically important. The numbers of recipients of social funds and of applications demonstrate their importance. In 2009-10, there were 640,000 applications for community care grants, 3.64 million for crisis loans and 1.69 million for budgeting loans. Some 263,000 CCGs were awarded, 2.7 million crisis loans were awarded, and 1.2 million budgeting loans were awarded, so the expenditure was significant. They make
	a significant impact on individuals’ lives and in tackling poverty across the country. Some £139 million was spent on CCGs, £109 million net was spent on crisis loans, and £482 million gross on budgeting loans. This is therefore a large-scale activity that is vital to the most vulnerable and poorest members of our society. Even at this level of expenditure, however, the Public Accounts Committee concluded, having investigated CCGs, that only 32% of legitimate demand was being met.
	I am extremely pleased that the Department for Work and Pensions is retaining budgeting loans and advance loans for alignment payments. However, I and many Members and voluntary organisations working in this field are unclear about what will replace the crisis loans and the CCGs. I am gravely concerned about the proposals to transfer responsibility to local authorities, which will be expected to design their own schemes for emergency support. Those responsibilities are being transferred at a time when local authority budgets are being cut. My understanding is that the funding will not be ring-fenced. In their consultation, the Government suggested that local authorities could also meet some of the demands with payments in kind—food parcels and second-hand furniture were mentioned as examples. I am also concerned that without clear guidance councils might be able unilaterally to introduce and force new conditions on those applying for emergency support.
	I tabled the amendment because of the real danger that we will now be faced with numerous schemes being developed by local authorities, and that vulnerable people will lose this essential support. I am concerned that if the funding to local authorities is not ring-fenced, it will be diverted to other priorities.
	Let me give the example of what happened to the playbuilder grant in my area. I chair the local play association, which I also helped to set up. When the ring fence was lifted, the Government initially sought to withdraw elements of the second year of the scheme. I am grateful that the Secretary of State for Education reinstated them and returned significant amounts to local authorities, which was a real breakthrough. However, because the money was not ring-fenced, much of it unfortunately appears to have been diverted into other areas of council expenditure, rather than going to improve play for children. That is just one example, from the most recent period, of funds that were not ring-fenced being allocated to local authorities and then spent for purposes other than those that the Government had intended. The Minister has agreed that allocations will be based on social fund spending, which will be regularly reviewed and the data updated. However, my concern is that if money is not ring-fenced in the first stages, it will be creamed off in the early years to be spent elsewhere.

John McDonnell: I understand, and, coming from a local government background—both as a councillor and as a local government officer—I very much support the localist agenda of freeing up local authorities to do as much as they can to reflect the direct wishes of the local electorate. However, we are talking about people in severe poverty, and one of the overall duties of government at every level is to ensure that people in our communities are not put at risk as a result of that poverty. Therefore, there is a danger in the localist agenda, which I support, of allowing a free-for-all. Without establishing national standards and monitoring, we could have a number of local authorities failing to fulfil their responsibilities as we would wish. Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the local electorate should hold those authorities to account, we have unfortunately had numerous examples—I speak as an advocate of local government—of that mechanism for keeping local authorities in check not being effective, particularly on the detail of administering such schemes. I am sure that we can all cite examples of that on a cross-party basis, no matter who has been in control.
	I am not talking about just my individual concerns. Virtually every organisation dealing with the poor in this country has expressed its concerns about this element of the legislation. My local citizens advice bureau has provided me with numerous examples—which I will not take the House through—of the benefits of both social loans, particularly crisis loans, and community care grants. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Heather Brown, the director of the Hillingdon CAB, and all her team for their hard work. They have emphasised the need to explore all the implications locally and nationally before the Government leap into a new system.
	Shelter and Crisis, the housing charities, have undertaken their own assessments of the process. Crisis surveyed 250 of their housing advisers. Numerous Members across all parties work closely with Crisis, and we have the greatest of respect for its work. That survey showed that 69% of clients used crisis loans for rent in advance, with 87% using them to help furnish their properties. In its briefing, which many Members will have seen, Crisis quotes one person as saying that unless we have a system that is at least as effective as the social fund, the effect on efforts to get people to move into independent accommodation would be “catastrophic”. Anxieties have been expressed across the board about the fact that we have not yet had that assurance.
	I am concerned about the lack of analysis in the Government’s proposals of people’s needs. There is also a lack of detail on how the proposals will work. My worry is that poor and vulnerable people will be put at risk as a result. It therefore behoves us as a House in
	discussing this legislation, as well as the Government, to come forward rapidly with detailed proposals that have statutory backing, in order to assure our constituents and all those working in the field that we will have a system to provide emergency support to people who are poor and vulnerable, but not one in which local decision making risks diverting those resources away from where they are needed. It is on that basis that I have tabled this amendment for discussion. I hope that, as a result of this debate, we will at least gain a clear understanding of how the Government are going to address these issues—and address them fairly urgently—given that they are causing considerable concern.

Karen Buck: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on the way in which he has introduced this group of amendments. His amendments and those tabled in my name cover much the same ground. Like him, I am deeply concerned that the Government propose to remove the discretionary element of the social fund without giving us a great deal more clarity about how the poorest and most vulnerable will be protected, about the adequacy of the replacement system, about the protection of vulnerable people without a local connection—a matter to which I shall return in a moment—and about the lack of a proper system of review. As my hon. Friend rightly said, the numbers involved are significant, with 640,000 applications for community care grants and 3.6 million applications for crisis loans. We are not talking about a modest amount of money, and those figures represent a great deal of need. He also suggested that they represent only the tip of the iceberg of need. Of course we accept that there cannot be unlimited capacity to meet need, and it is clear that, were more resources to be made available, more need would come out and be met.
	I want to pick up on a point that my hon. Friend made in response to an intervention. Despite the numbers of people who apply for and receive loans and grants under the discretionary grant, and the fact that when local government takes on this responsibility it will be accountable, in the spirit of localism, to its electors, we must recognise that the characteristics of people who seek assistance from the social fund do not make them a cohort of people that is likely to influence local politicians on a significant scale. This will tie into comments that I will make in a moment about what we should do with people with no local connection.
	All the evidence that I and my hon. Friends have received from our law centres, citizens advice bureaux and other organisations shows that the claimants of discretionary social fund elements are very likely to be highly mobile people in a crisis that frequently severs their connections to the local community. They are not likely to be over-represented among those on the electoral register, or to wield a significant amount of local clout. They would not always need to do that; a good, responsive local authority will map and respond to their needs without it, but the reality is that, in a competition for scarce resources, that will not always be true of all local authorities.
	We are completing the stages of the Welfare Reform Bill today, having been asked to make decisions on a number of important elements, which we discussed on Monday and are debating today, without having been given a great deal of substance or detail about how
	those elements will work. The Government called for evidence on the discretionary element of the social fund in February, but the consultation did not close until we were in the middle of the Bill’s Committee stage. That worries me. Yet again, the Government seem to be pushing ahead with their proposals even though we have not had a proper opportunity to reflect on the breadth of views and opinions of people with experience of and expertise in the subject.
	The Minister might care to report to the House on what the responses to the consultation actually said. It would be nice if she could assure us that all the responses would be placed in the Library. I think I can guess, however, that their overwhelming tone will be one of deep disquiet, and that they will be urging the Government to think again, which is consistent with the principles outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. As he said, almost all the organisations with expertise and specialist knowledge in the operation of the social fund have told the Government of their worries. Let us take note of who they are. They include: Age UK; the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services; Barnardo’s; the Child Poverty Action Group; Citizens Advice; Community Links; Crisis; Disability Alliance; Family Action; the Family Fund; the Family Rights Group; Gingerbread; Homeless Link; the National Housing Federation; Oxfam; Platform 51; the Prison Reform Trust; Save the Children; Scope; and St Mungo’s. I am sure that there are others.
	Those organisations are the big society in action. In many cases, they provide complementary services to the social fund, and they are expressing their concerns about the Government’s proposals and about their capacity to deliver to the people who will need their services when the changes are introduced. If the Government are serious, as I have always thought they were, about the idea of the big society and about a partnership with voluntary and community organisations, surely the first principle must be to listen to what those organisations are saying. Let us take an example from that list. Oxfam has said:
	“The Social Fund provides vital support for people in times of crisis. The government proposes to devolve much of this money to local authorities, but without any statutory duty on them to provide an equivalent system of protection. This runs the risk of driving people to use high-cost lenders, reducing their chances of managing their debts successfully. This is particularly important as Universal Credit constitutes a radical reform, and it is almost certain that its introduction will suffer from teething troubles. These are likely to cause significant need for emergency payments like crisis loans, just as they are abolished. The Social Fund needs to play an important role in protecting people during this transition, which further supports the need for a delay to the change.”
	The Committee also heard directly from people who know more about the social fund in all its strengths and weaknesses—we know that there are some weaknesses in the operation of the existing scheme—than anyone else. They included Sir Richard Tilt from the Social Security Advisory Committee, who said:
	“Community care grants are the bit I am most concerned about—£141 million. By the time that you have dished that out to 100 plus local authorities, there will not be a great amount of money at local level, and I think, as it is not ring-fenced, it is likely to disappear into other things.”
	He also said:
	“My view on all this is that we have a UK social security system and that, for the past 25 years, the discretionary social fund has been the ultimate, final safety net for the poorest and
	most vulnerable…I would argue for a UK safety net underneath it.”
	––
	[
	Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 
	24 March 2011; c. 82-3.]
	Professor Kempson told the Committee, in respect of the role of local authorities:
	“Some will provide a better service than we have now”.
	I do not think that that is in doubt. There is excellent practice in local government. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, I also came to the House after serving in local government and I am a great advocate of it. Professor Kempson said:
	“Some will provide a better service than we have now; many will provide a worse service; and some, I fear, will provide almost no service.”
	She also said:
	“As I read it, there will be no ring-fencing, and I cannot even see that there is any proposal as yet to build in any form of accountability by local authorities. That is the very least that is needed.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 24 March 2011; c. 82-3.]
	We know that the social fund has many flaws and has been subjected to scathing criticism from the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office and others. I completely accept that those criticisms need to be taken seriously. The issue before the House today, however, is whether the Government’s proposal risks making things worse by entirely removing that essential safety net without addressing the genuine concerns of the present system. The Minister made it absolutely clear to the Committee that
	“there is no expectation that local authorities will replicate the current scheme.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 3 May 2011; c. 731.]
	She is nodding at that. She made it clear that, when the discretionary social fund is removed, local authorities will provide a service equivalent to the present one. She said that this was not devolution to local government, but something fundamentally different.
	Central to that is the fact that the Government do not expect local authorities to manage loan schemes, as happens now with the crisis loan scheme, and that as loan repayments were topping up the available resource through the current crisis loans, the capacity to provide an equivalent level of service through emergency funding is now severely restricted. The figure I was given was 84%, although the Minister told us in Committee that it was 50%—and I am happy to accept her correction. None the less, the cash sum as an annual figure starting from now that will be devolved to local authorities does not tell us much about the funding that will available for the equivalent level of crisis service once the scheme gets under way because that 50% repayment will very quickly fundamentally erode the value of the service. As we have heard, the likelihood is that it will drive people into the arms of the cowboy and high-interest lenders as well as into debt.
	The current proposals expect local authorities to devise their own schemes for emergency support, but without ring-fencing or without specific accountability attached to the funds. It is highly likely, as we know, that some or all of the funds can be diverted into other local priorities and the safety net would disappear.
	The Government also envisage local schemes that will make use of the provision of other cash support to assist people in need, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, emphasising the potential use of credit unions, charitable support, recycled furniture outlets and food banks. Setting aside whether that is really the kind of service that we want to operate, it has to be accepted—this is central to our thinking—that in many cases, although not all, when people are in need of emergency assistance, money is the best way of helping them to purchase the goods that they are likely to need.
	That is very much in the spirit of empowerment, which we often hear the Government talk about in other respects. When people are at a crisis point in their lives and turn up to ask for assistance—perhaps fleeing domestic violence and needing to set up a new home—I fail to see how it empowers them when the only thing available is a second-hand recycled white goods store that may or may not have the form of assistance that they need. Whether or not it will be good value for money is another point. We all know that second-hand and recycled goods are of less value than new ones. There are all kinds of practical issues to consider.

Sheila Gilmore: Is it not also the case that many of the arrangements for people to purchase second-hand furniture are increasingly set up as social enterprises, which are intended to recoup money and make a working profit to go back into the business, so they will charge people, albeit less than for new goods, as otherwise their enterprise will not work. In any event, if this were going to be free, it would have to be heavily subsidised by someone.

Karen Buck: That is absolutely right. The Government mention credit unions as part of the package of alternatives that they want to see picking up the slack. They may have a role for some people, but the hon. Gentleman is right that they are not an emergency response. As I said in my opening remarks, precisely because a disproportionate number of the individuals who need crisis intervention do not have a local connection or a stable household background, they are the ones who will not be in a credit union. They are disproportionately unlikely to be in a credit union or to have the scope to be able to join one. That is precisely why the social workers—expected to be a part, although admittedly not the entirety, of the gatekeeping process for the replacement of the discretionary social fund—are so concerned. Although they will not be alone, they will be very much on the front line of gatekeeping for this dramatically reduced and very different type of service, which is patchy and might be flourishing in some cases and not in others. As I said in Committee, the consortium of community care stated a few months ago that social workers are anxious about having to deliver the social fund, knowing that applications for community care grants are already turned down in 60% of cases. They say that their role as advocates and supporters for people in need through a crisis in their lives is dangerously undermined by the new financial gatekeeping role that they will be asked to take on.
	In evidence to the Committee, Councillor Steve Reed, speaking on behalf of the London Councils and the Local Government Association, said that local authorities have expressed an in-principle willingness to be part of this process. I understand why he would do that. He also told the Committee that he was worried that the localisation of the discretionary social fund should be fully funded and that it should cover all the costs, including the administration costs, which, for the community care grant alone, were £19 million in 2008-09. As we have drawn out in the debate over the past hour, the likelihood is that the administrative process for local government and the gatekeeping, which will not simply be about deciding whether to give a crisis loan or community care grant but whether to find people alternative levels of support, are likely to put an increased financial burden on local authorities.
	Some Government Members on the Committee argued that social workers and others will be able to provide more intensive, personalised intervention for people in crisis, helping to end a cycle of repeated loan applications, but that is likely to make the situation worse. If the 3.64 million crisis loan applicants or 640,000 applications for community care grants have to be funnelled through a more intensive and personal level of intervention, who will do that work? Where are the social workers and the available time in local government to improve on this? The answer is that they will not be there. Local authorities are retrenching and they are on the back foot financially, and the likelihood is that they will have a smaller pot of money as they act as gatekeepers for an even wider group of individuals.
	The Minister tells us that there is an expectation that there will be some form of review process, but the current review process is national and now every local authority will be expected to set up its own, leading to huge complications with differences in approach and the structure and bureaucracy of setting up a process in every local authority to determine how initial decisions will be reviewed and appealed against. I know that that causes a great deal of alarm in the advice sector.
	Let me return to the vexed concern about local connection. Sample work on discretionary fund cases was carried out by the Department last year, which considered a basket of 500 different cases, and 20% of those cases involved people who were homeless. Some 20% and more of the applicants in such cases—the amount varied between different parts of the country—had no single connection with any individual local authority. That is my single biggest concern about the Government’s approach to this agenda.
	One example, which was highlighted in the media last week, is the case of victims of domestic violence. A group of the women’s charities have written to the Minister for Women and Equalities, warning that some councils will not be financially able or willing to help women escape violent partners on the grounds of the provisions in this part of the legislation. They believe that there will be an increased postcode lottery of provision that does not reflect the Government’s previous claim that tackling domestic violence is a priority and they fear that councils could impose a local connection test that could disadvantage women fleeing domestic violence who are often, almost by definition, forced to move into another local authority area. They say that many women fleeing the home have to leave everything behind, including household furnishings and essential items, such as cookers, that most families take for granted to rebuild their lives in a new home. They quoted a mother from Croydon, south London, who left her abusive partner in 2003 and said that she had only been able to escape a life of domestic violence thanks to a £700 grant that helped her to rebuild her life. The chief executive of Women’s Aid said:
	“The social fund is a vital resource for victims attempting to rebuild their lives after domestic abuse and, if it is not available, victims may be forced to return to their abusers.”
	The director of Refuge added that if the discretionary social fund is abolished, there is a risk that
	“more women will be forced to delay their escape from their partner.”
	We flagged up other groups in Committee that deserve to be mentioned again, such as those that deal with the problems for ex-prisoners. About 66,000 people leave prison every year, a third without accommodation. The Prison Reform Trust has lobbied me and others on its concerns about the loss of the discretionary social fund and has flagged up the fact that ex-prisoners have a particularly strong need for early financial assistance to prevent debt, because once they are in debt, there is a grave danger that that will lead to a risk of reoffending, as the two are heavily correlated.
	I worry that local authorities, which are subject to political pressures from their resident populations and forced into painful choices that, in some cases, involve retrenching youth services, libraries and so on, are
	hardly likely when allocating a non-ring-fenced grant to make ex-offenders, for example, a priority. That is human nature. It is inevitable that some groups will be less of a priority than others and ex-offenders are likely to be a particularly at-risk group in that context. If we take each local authority on its own merits, we can understand the political reality of that position, but it will come back and bite local communities and the Government many times over if those individuals are not assisted and cannot make a stable life for themselves after they leave prison.
	Local authorities such as mine and such as those in seaside communities, in particular, have an incredibly high population turnover. In my constituency, 30% of those on the electoral register alone move address every single year. Those individuals do not have a local connection and there will be a real risk that a mechanism will be created to determine who does and who does not have a local connection. Where, then, will those individuals go?
	When the Committee took evidence, the Secretary of State said that there would be a “moral duty” on local councils. I repeat what I said in Committee: I do not know what a moral duty means. We all believe that local authorities have moral obligations and we have a moral obligation to respond to homelessness, to children in need and to the care needs of our elderly people, but in practice, without a legislative framework, people will not necessarily assume that duty if they have grounds to believe, for example, that the person approaching them at a time of crisis is not someone whom that specific local authority has a duty to assist. Although I welcome the principle of a moral duty, I want to see a legislative framework. I want to see it piloted so that local authorities have the opportunity to draw up a code of practice that can be tested and shown to work so that when people do not have a specific local connection they will be dealt with and not turned away.
	For all those reasons, and for the reasons so well expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, I shall press amendment 39 to a vote. There might be scope for a localised response to some of these needs, but we are a long way from having anything like the structures, framework and legislation to enable individual needs to be accommodated, including with reviews and when the vexed question of local connection is not resolved. I hope that the House will take the opportunity to say that we should not proceed until we have seen this working in practice and dealt with any of the problems that will undoubtedly arise.

Maria Miller: I know that the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) is keen for us to make progress today and was somewhat concerned that we did not complete consideration of all elements on Monday. I will try to address all the issues that I am able to address in a speedy manner so that we can consider things fully.
	Right hon. and hon. Members who have been listening to the debate thus far will already have a flavour of the complexity of the current scheme. Unfortunately, the scheme is open to widespread abuse, and some of that is driven by the remoteness of the administration of these elements of the discretionary social fund. Just so that hon. Members are absolutely clear, we are talking about replacing budget loans, crisis loans and the community
	care grant with national payments on account, including advances and alignment payments, and with local authority -delivered local assistance. The bulk of the comments of the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck) were about crisis loans, half of which are alignment payments, which will continue to be paid at national level through payments on account. It is important that hon. Members are aware that to all intents and purposes people will still have access to that money on a national basis. I hope that will reassure hon. Members regarding a number of the issues raised.
	I do not think that the status quo is an option because of the level of abuse in the system at the moment. First, the number of crisis loans has tripled since 2006, but we do not believe that that increase reflects an underlying increase in genuine need as a result of the recession or anything else. We have looked in detail at the individuals who are causing that increase in demand and our analysis has shown that it is being driven by young single people on jobseeker’s allowance, many of whom are still living at home. We should be looking at what is driving that demand and asking whether the money is getting through to the sort of vulnerable people about whom the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is rightly concerned.

Maria Miller: The national payments on account will be dealt with on a national basis in the same way in any part of the country and the regulated part of the social fund will continue as it is. Really, the hon. Gentleman is talking about how local assistance will be dealt with and I am sure that he, like all hon. Members, will know that local authorities want to do their best by the vulnerable citizens we are talking about. That is certainly my experience of most, if not all, local authorities.

Maria Miller: Will the hon. Lady forgive me if I make a little more progress? As I have said, we really need to move through this quite quickly.
	Another reason why the status quo is not an option was highlighted only this week when community care grants were referenced in a “Dispatches” programme which showed that an ex-offender who had received a community care grant for resettlement had spent the money on drugs. We should all be concerned about the lack of checking on how money is used and we should look at how to improve the system.
	The hon. Member for Westminster North took a great deal of pain to talk about people who claim crisis loans having some degree of mobility and disengagement from the democratic system. I am not sure what evidence she has to support those assumptions, but we do not have that evidence to hand. The three elements of the discretionary scheme that I have talked about have very different and distinct client groups.

Maria Miller: The hon. Lady is obviously a mind reader, because I was just about to talk about whether the changes we are discussing will be a problem for victims of domestic violence—a group whom we all want to ensure get that support and are able to move to a place of safety, as is absolutely right. We do not believe that the new localised service will be a barrier to people in genuine need, particularly victims of domestic violence. It will provide an opportunity for more joined-up services on the ground while continuing to give individuals in that situation access to national payments on account through advances or alignment payments. The hon. Lady will be aware that under the current scheme victims of domestic violence must have fled the family home to qualify for support to set up home from the discretionary social fund.
	A third and very important reason why keeping the status quo is not a sensible option is the need to align support with the wider changes that are happening in the welfare system. To continue running the current administratively burdensome system is no longer financially sustainable. Community care grants and crisis loans for general living expenses will be replaced by locally-based support, which will be the responsibility of local authorities in England and the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales. That will deliver on the coalition’s commitment to implement the Calman commission’s recommendations and will tie in with the wider Government agenda on localism, as has been mentioned. Local authorities are better placed to understand the issues that people in their area face and to dovetail existing and needed services. Different areas face different issues and local authorities will be free to come up with the sort of innovative ideas that will address these issues and make sure that the money that is available is targeted at the right purposes so that we move away from a situation that allows the sort of abuse I have mentioned.

Maria Miller: Local authorities will be free to consider whether they need to set up their own service locally or use the local government ombudsman. It really is for local authorities to look at the most effective way of dealing with levels of fraud or with any dissatisfaction with the way in which they are delivering services. The amendments do not really grasp the premise behind the Government’s proposals. We want to move to a situation in which local authorities are looking at the gaps in their services locally and are able to use the funding that is forthcoming as a result of these changes to fill those gaps and pull together the sort of service that is required by vulnerable groups such as those we have been discussing.
	Crisis loans for alignment purposes and budgeting loans will be replaced by new national provision. As I have said, that accounts for half of all current crisis loan applications. That provision will be delivered nationally by the Department for Work and Pensions. The ending of the discretionary social fund and the implementation of replacement schemes, both nationally through payments on account and locally by local authorities and the devolved Administrations, is the best way to approach the reform. Amendments 53 and 54 would prevent those reforms from taking place and would leave us with an out-of-date and inefficient discretionary social fund scheme which would soon be unworkable with the introduction of the wider benefit reform we have already outlined.
	Amendments 39 and 40 would impose criteria set by central Government on arrangements to replace the discretionary social fund if it were abolished. Some of the requirements in amendment 39 are activities that we are already undertaking in our work on the replacement of the discretionary social fund. Other elements in the amendment would not be helpful to what the reform of the social fund is trying to achieve. As I said, in some ways the amendment misses the point of the reform, which is that local authorities are better placed to understand the needs of their local communities and to make sure that the money is getting through to the right people for the right activities.

Yvonne Fovargue: As we have heard, the discretionary social fund currently consists of budgeting loans for managed expenditure, crisis loans for emergencies and community care grants for essential household items such as cookers and beds for certain groups—for example, vulnerable people who are moving into new accommodation. The provision is national and acts as a safety net for benefit recipients facing essential expenditure they cannot meet.
	It bears repeating that in 2009-10, there were 640,000 applications for community care grants and 3.64 million applications for crisis loans. That demonstrates the scale of the activity we are asking local authorities to take on. It is no small task, but it is absolutely vital to the financial well-being of many of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. Although an alignment scheme will be introduced—in effect, allowing advance payment of benefit—I have seen from my previous experience how important it is that people can claim a community care grant, which does not have to be paid back, for their living expenses. It does not put people on the lowest possible income into debt. Without that, people will be driven into the arms of the high-cost lenders, which will reduce their chances of managing their debts successfully. That will put more strain on other services—for example, the health service—due to the increase of stress and depression caused by the cycle of low income and debt.
	Proposals were outlined in 2011 to transfer to local authorities, with guidance, the funds currently used, but there will be no new statutory duty for how the money is to be used. It will not be ring-fenced. Local authorities have numerous calls on their expenditure at present, and without ring-fencing we cannot guarantee that the provision will go to those who are most in need. I envisage a number of different policies and that some vulnerable people will lose the right to apply for emergency support. They may be trapped between two local authorities with differing policies.

Yvonne Fovargue: I will not give way. I want to move on to the lack of an appeals process.
	I regret the loss of the extremely useful digest published by the social fund commissioner which gave an overview of appeals and reviews. That was an invaluable tool for advisers. It assisted them to help their clients to obtain their rights consistently. Such consistency is extremely important. Without a universal scheme, it will be lost, so vulnerable claimants will be left with a patchy and inconsistent service. People might have a right of appeal or independent review but, depending on local authorities’ policies, one side of the street could well get a cash grant while the other side would be given advice about which charity to approach. In the context of homelessness, I have seen that one local authority’s interpretation of “advice and assistance” can be very different from that of the local authority that gives people a list of private landlords.

Jim Shannon: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Many Members in all parts of the House know how the system works and the importance of a crisis loan system operating through the social fund.
	My final point relates to the appeals system. The proposed changes will do away with the independent appeals system or at least make it unnecessary. I have fought a number of appeals for people who had applied for crisis loans through the social fund. Having the appeals system in place is critical. If they are turned down the first time, it may be because they provided the wrong information, or because all the necessary information was not available. An appeals system allows a review to take place. It is crucial that the independent appeals system is retained.
	The system of crisis loans through the social fund is a crucial aspect of life in Britain today for the people who come to my office and for those I meet. It gives people hope and an opportunity to get out of sometimes dire financial circumstances. The Government, the House and we as elected representatives have a duty to make sure that the social fund and the crisis loan are retained.

Ian Paisley Jnr: The point that the hon. Lady is making is critically important. A local authority might lay down a policy on this matter that is very good, but if another authority then does something slightly different that appears to be better, automatically all the good work that the first local authority has done will be seen as of no use as it will be held to another standard. We must have a single national standard so that people who require this fund, whether in Bushmills or Birmingham, know that they will see the same standard, with the same requirements, the same grant and the same opportunity to avail themselves of that assistance.

Bridget Phillipson: I agree entirely. It is vital that people feel that appropriate safeguards are in place with a national scheme and a national appeals system so that when things go wrong, as they sometimes do, there is an appropriate means of redress so that decisions can be looked at again.
	My concern with the Government’s proposals is that we will end up with massive variation between councils and between different parts of the United Kingdom, which will disadvantage people in certain areas. Some councils might choose a system that works very effectively and addresses the needs of vulnerable groups, but others might not do that so well. That is why the Government
	must be very clear about the standards that they will demand of local authorities, but they are not being clear.
	Women fleeing domestic violence are often forced out of their local area in order to seek safety, so what safeguards can we expect when a woman is forced to move to an area where the local council might decide that she is ineligible for support? In the urban areas of the north-east, where large local authorities cover small geographical areas, it is not a great distance from Gateshead to Sunderland, but might the local authority in Sunderland, for example, take the view that the woman should seek support from her local authority in Gateshead? I sincerely hope that it would not take such a view, as that could hold up the process when the woman desperately needs financial help. This is not a factor at present because the scheme is a national one, but devolving responsibility to local councils will create a raft of potential problems for those councils and risk placing some very vulnerable people at risk of harm.
	It is simply not good enough for the Government to hope that local councils will be able to manage this complex change. With a budget that is not ring-fenced and the potential for a reduced level of funding from recovered grants, it is inevitable that some local councils will not want to take people without a clear and established local connection, which I believe will be particularly damaging for women fleeing domestic violence if this is not done properly. That is why it is imperative that the Government set out detailed proposals, as amendment 39 makes clear, including eligibility criteria and an independent appeals mechanism. Without further clarity and detail, there is a real likelihood that some of the most vulnerable people in our communities will be unable to access financial support when they need it most.

Margaret Curran: This is embarrassing, because hon. Members are putting the argument so much more effectively than I am.
	To conclude on this section of my contribution, may I make an appeal to Members of the House? We have a moment in time. We are being watched by disabled people this afternoon, and by their organisations. This goes to the heart of what we are about. People will be prisoners in residential care and prisoners in their own homes if this provision is removed from them. Many opportunities for them will also be withdrawn. I appeal to hon. Members: let us do the right thing this evening and vote for amendment 43—I also intend, Mr Deputy Speaker, to press amendments 42 and 44 to a Division when the time comes.
	I shall now discuss specific aspects of the personal independence payment that should be changed to make the new benefit fairer and more effective in giving support to those who need it, and to assist a smooth transition for existing claimants to the new benefit. Amendments 44 to 47 seek to amend clause 79 and the proposed change to the required period condition for PIP. The amendments would retain the three-month period that claimants must wait before they are eligible
	to receive PIP, but would extend the period over which a claimant must show that they will be with that disability from six months, as is currently the case with DLA, to nine months.
	In other words, for those who have not followed every single detail of the Bill like those of us who served in Committee, like the Government intend, the Opposition would extend the current DLA required condition period from nine months to one year for PIP. However, the Opposition would extend the provision after receipt of the benefit, not at the beginning. To do otherwise would be to penalise unfairly those disabled people who need extra help associated with their disability early in their treatment.
	Yet again, there is some confusion as to the rationale behind the change in the waiting time for PIP. In Committee, the Minister said that the change was categorically not about savings. She clearly stated:
	“I will be honest and open with my answer. I would like to reassure the hon. Lady”—
	meaning me—
	“that the principal aim of extending the qualifying period from three to six months is not about savings. We do not expect the measure to provide any significant savings.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 May 2011; c. 848.]
	Furthermore, I have asked the Minister in a series of written parliamentary questions what the projected savings are. Again, her Department was unable to provide any sort of answer—nor do its answers so much as allude to potential savings resulting from this policy decision—yet at Department for Work and Pensions questions on Monday, the Minister appeared to backtrack, stating that “modest” savings were now part of the reasoning for pushing ahead with the change. In her response today, will she indicate the scale of those modest savings? It is a little concerning that the rationale behind changes that will make such a big difference to the lives of many disabled people in this country is, even at this late stage, being cobbled together by the Government.
	If we cannot comment on savings from the policy, we can at least discuss its impact on disabled people who require PIP to help them to meet extra costs associated with their disability. In Committee, we discussed in great detail the different conditions that are likely to require early support, so I will not go into them in great depth today unless pushed to do so.

Margaret Curran: Indeed, and for those of us who have experience of how families struggle through family illness or lower incomes, we know how important that is. We do not want to have a society in which people who are struggling with major illnesses have to worry about how they will meet their family bills.
	Cancer and stroke victims usually require help early in their conditions. As of August 2010, some 195,000 people were receiving DLA for a malignant disease or a stroke-related condition. Many in this group who are of working age may well be the very individuals who will be affected by clause 79 and the decision to lengthen the qualifying period to six months.
	The extra costs will vary from individual to individual, but we can safely assume that they include key criteria such as extra fuel costs, costs associated with aids, adaptations and special diets, and extra costs of washing clothes and such like.

Margaret Curran: That test was introduced for the work capability assessment and the application of employment and support allowance, as the hon. Gentleman knows. Of course I acknowledge that the Minister is working with disabled people to try to ensure that the test is as effective as it can be, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman and the Minister that most disabled people are saying that they are not satisfied. I do not think that reassurances have been given that the test is right yet.
	None the less, what I am talking about in this debate is automatic entitlement, which is a different issue. Even if the test were perfect, which would be very hard to achieve—we are very far from that—putting people through needless assessments, all at a cost, would still not be worth it when they are clearly disabled. Retaining automatic entitlement for severely disabled people would be a small step, but would enable the Government to send out an important signal to show that they are listening and that they get some of this. The big cry coming from disabled people is that there has been no shift from the Government and no signals, and that they do not get it.
	Amendment 60, which is our final amendment in the group, would ensure that the process of reassessment will result in an orderly, careful and efficient transition for working-age claimants. As I have said before, we need to keep in mind the scale of the exercise that the Government are proposing to undertake. We are talking about reassessing 1.8 million working-age people on DLA in the space of just three years. To meet that goal, the Government would need to reassess—I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North that I do have the figures for this—roughly 600,000 people, which is 11,500 people a week or more than 2,000 a day. That is the scale of the process that disabled people will have to go through.
	Given the scale and depth of concern about this issue, our amendment 60 proposes that checks and balances be written into the Bill to ensure that lessons are learnt as reform develops—we have tried to learn some of those lessons ourselves—and that the teething problems of assessment are addressed and disabled people have the confidence that reform will work for them. Amendment 60 would embrace this opportunity to send out a clear message that we will learn from mistakes in the system and iron out anomalies of the assessment before we start to assess some of the most vulnerable people currently receiving DLA, by ensuring that only new applicants are assessed first. That is what the safeguard would do. Amendment 60 is fair and proportionate. We are not saying that reassessment is wrong; we are simply saying that it needs to be done properly and carefully, and that it should be phased, with the Secretary of State playing a key role in the process to ensure clear scrutiny and accountability.
	The amendments would ensure that the personal independence payment was a fairer, more effective and workable reform. As I set out in my introductory remarks, the Opposition support reform and the principles of reform; however, the Government have wasted a significant opportunity to introduce such reform. If the universal credit penalises families of disabled children by halving the support available to them; penalises severely disabled people who live alone by neglecting to replicate the severe disability premium or the personal independence payment; penalises disabled people in residential care homes by removing their DLA mobility component; penalises disabled people by making them wait six months before they receive the support that they need; and creates uncertainty and needless anxiety for the most disabled people in our society by removing their automatic entitlement to the new benefit, is it any wonder that we are opposed to this legislation?

Jennifer Willott: I am afraid that I am not taking any more interventions, as many Members want to participate in the debate and I do not want to run out of time. I am sure that those who have further comments will attempt to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker.
	We must not underestimate how important it is for people to be able to get out and about. I appreciate that those in residential care often do not have as many mobility needs as some people living on their own. For example, they do not need to shop regularly for food as it is usually provided, and they often do not need to make arrangements to get to a doctor’s appointment or the hairdresser’s because those services are often provided in the care home. However, they often need to shop for things other than food—for clothes and personal items—and they need to be able to maintain contact with friends and family. Younger people in residential care may often be in work and need to travel in and out of work as well. They have needs that need to be funded. It depends on the disability, but often public transport is not an option, so people rely on expensive taxis, on Motability scooters or on having access to their own vehicle, all of which add significant costs.
	It is important that people have independence, keep up their social lives and live a full and valuable life. That is not possible on the £22 a week that people in residential care would be left with if they did not have the mobility element or any other support for their mobility needs. Although this part of the Bill is about PIPs, which will apply only to those who are over 18, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the Government’s intention about extending PIPs to the under-18s, too, and whether the provisions will apply to families and young people with disabilities who are under that age.
	My amendments would ensure that this important issue is decided by affirmative resolution, enabling proper parliamentary scrutiny, and that its implementation is monitored effectively through the production of a report after enough time has elapsed to show the impact and the effect. It is clear to me from the totality of the Government’s proposals that affect people with disabilities that the Government do not intend to restrict the independence of individuals. The move towards personal independence payments from disability living allowance goes in quite the opposite direction. We had a number of debates in Committee about the increased emphasis on individual needs and independence, and I sometimes found the Minister’s emphasis on taking every person as an individual and assessing their individual needs somewhat frustrating. Sometimes in debate it is easier to consider groups of people, but it is clear that the Minister’s intention is to consider individual needs and to take them into account when making decisions, as well as to ensure that individuals have independence.

Anne Begg: I suspect that many hon. Members will want to speak particularly about the removal of the higher-rate mobility allowance from residential care, so I shall not talk about that in any detail, but I think it is merely the top of a very pernicious iceberg, and the proposed amendments attempt to allay our concerns on that. This issue has captured the public imagination because it seems so grossly unfair and because people cannot understand what kind of Government would take away the independence of the, by definition, most disabled people in our community because they happen to live in a residential home or, for those whose families might lose access to an adapted vehicle, because they happen to go to a residential school.
	I want to look more widely at the Government’s reasons for seeing fit to wipe away everything that was the DLA and bring in a new benefit called the personal independence payment. Let me address the Government’s analysis, or rather their argument—I should not have said analysis because part of the problem is that there
	has been no proper analysis and that it is very difficult to get any data to suggest that some of what they have said is true; that might be the case for individual cases, but it is not widespread. The fact that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) had to ask for some of those data may show that the Government lumbered into the whole area without knowing the details, and that their proposals were based on some perception of prejudice, or the need to save money, a point to which I shall return.
	What were the criticisms that the Government laid at the door of DLA? They said there were no regular reassessments. That is easy to sort. We can put in regular reassessments for certain people. The Government said that too many people were getting DLA for life. Is that too much of a problem? If a person is quadriplegic after a cataclysmic accident, I am not sure they will get better. The reason why many people who at present depend on DLA are so frightened by the changes is that they have an award for life; they do not have to worry about more reassessments. They have gone through assessments. They know they are profoundly disabled. Anybody looking at them can tell they are profoundly disabled, so why on earth do they yet again have to go through an assessment?
	Another criticism of DLA was that some people were getting it automatically based on their condition. I challenge the Minister to tell us what it is about the condition of people who cannot feed themselves, cannot dress themselves, cannot move from one seated position to another, cannot walk or go to the toilet themselves that means they have to be assessed for their need for extra costs for care and mobility. I cannot think of a reason. Why should there not be an assumption that those individuals have their extra costs for care and mobility covered by DLA? That is what it was all about.
	The Government’s main argument was that DLA was not well understood. That is not my experience from talking to people who receive DLA. It was one of the few benefits they did understand. DLA was for the extra mobility and care costs associated with disability. Compare that to the confusing rules for tax credits, or the in-work benefits or disability premiums associated with jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance or incapacity benefit. We could look at contributory ESA as well. Those are confusing. The one benefit for disabled people that was clear—they knew what it was for—was disability living allowance. That is what they tell me and I am sure it is what they have told the Government. The vast majority of responses to the Government’s consultation made exactly that point: people valued DLA so greatly that they were frightened they might lose it.
	Another criticism the Government have made of DLA is that the form was too long and complicated. That would be easy to sort. Make it shorter, make it less complicated and maybe put it online. There were solutions.
	Those were the main criticisms of DLA that the Government have come up with, but none of them could not have been solved by some changes to the existing allowance. It did not require the sweeping away of DLA and its replacement with a new benefit, with new criteria. If the criteria were out of date, some of them could have been changed, but there was and is no need to change all of them. People who depend on DLA at present as a large part of their income are
	terrified, because they do not know what lies ahead. If the system is as bad as, according to the Government, it is at the moment, those people are worried that whatever the Government come up with will not be suitable for their needs. I have to tell the hon. Member for Cardiff Central that the previous Government did not collect data on double-funding mobility allowance in care homes, because they were not advocating the removal of DLA from that group of people.
	The things that are particularly good but often forgotten about DLA include the fact that it is an in-work and out-of-work benefit. That element will become increasingly important as the Government proceed with their welfare reforms to put work obligations on people with profound disabilities. Anyone who is not assessed as being in the support group for ESA will have a work obligation. However, if those who end up in the work-related activity group find that they no longer qualify for DLA, it will be all the harder for them to find a job or to do the work-related activity that the Government expect them to do, because the extra financing to make that possible will have been removed.
	The best thing about DLA was that we had for the first time in this country a benefit that followed the social model of disability, rather than the medical model. There is a worry that the clock will be turned back. The Government call their new benefit the personal independence payment, but DLA was a personal independence payment, so they did not need to change the benefit. DLA is personalised and represents what the Government say they want the benefit system to be because it is a dynamic benefit, which means that it helps people to lead an independent life by going out to work, visiting friends and doing all the things that everyone else takes for granted. Such independence includes the ability to live in the community, which can be achieved if a person can buy in care and get someone to come in to look after their care needs. All those things exist under DLA, so why is there a need to make a fundamental change to something that was not broken? Why fix something that was working reasonably well? No one would have complained if the Government had done a bit of tweaking, but such a fundamental change makes people especially worried.
	The Red Book states that the Government want to cut 20% from the DLA budget. That means that the pot will be 20% smaller, but given the cost of reassessing everyone, about which we have heard today, the reduction in payments will be more than 20%, because some of the money that would have gone to disabled people so that they could live their lives will be invested into the private company that will carry out the reassessments. Given the difficulties of the ESA, there is suspicion about the accuracy of the reassessments. Even though Professor Harrington has made recommendations, there are still fears and worries about the way in which the work capability assessment is working, and disabled people’s experience of that assessment makes them especially worried about what will happen under PIP.

Anne Begg: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Perhaps I should now speak to amendments 76 and 77, which I tabled as an attempt to ensure that fluctuating conditions—mental health problems are often fluctuating conditions—are properly recognised.
	Mental health organisations throughout the country are deeply concerned about clause 79, which makes provision about whether an individual will qualify for a personal independence payment. The Bill states that the question of qualification relates to whether during
	“every time in the previous 6 months, it is likely that if the relevant ability had been assessed at that time that ability would have been determined to be limited”.
	Mental health charities are worried that someone with a fluctuating condition would not qualify because they would have to be sufficiently ill for qualification at every point over those six months. Amendments 76 and 77 clarify that the condition would not have to be continuous throughout that time. The charities agree with the principle of monitoring a person’s condition over time rather than making a snapshot assessment—they have no problem with that. They say the latter would poorly serve individuals with fluctuating conditions. This has been especially apparent in the experience of people applying for employment and support allowance.
	The wording of the Bill suggests that people with fluctuating mental health problems or another fluctuating condition will not qualify if they are not consistently ill for the required length of time. Denying them support through PIP could have a detrimental effect on their health and their ability to manage their condition. This could affect the individual’s ability to stay in work if they are employed, or impede their recovery if they are not working. Also, it would not accurately capture the impact of the condition on an individual’s life. I do not intend to press my amendments to a Division—we probably have enough votes—but I want an assurance from the Minister that fluctuating conditions will be taken into account and will be recognised. That is a particular worry.
	If the Government are hell-bent on introducing PIP, it is important that we get it right. As I just mentioned with regard to people with mental health problems, the Government are putting new obligations on disabled people of working age. They will have work obligations. They will have to do work-related activity. If PIP is not there to act as an aid to help someone get into work, the barriers that exist for all disabled people—such as lack of access to transport, or the lack of the ability to buy in their own care which is flexible enough to allow them to go to work—become insurmountable barriers. That means that the Government will not be able to deliver on their stated aim of getting more and more disabled people into work.
	It is particularly important that the right people and those with severe disabilities get PIP because, as we heard during Prime Minister’s questions today, the Government are proposing to limit contributory employment support allowance to a year. That will affect anyone who is not in the support group and who has cancer—that has been used as an example, but it could be someone in the early stages of multiple sclerosis or with a condition such as Crohn’s disease—and who is quite ill, but not terminally ill or ill enough to go into the support group, and not so disabled that anyone looking at them would say it was unfair to expect that person to work.
	Large numbers of people with conditions that are difficult to manage and make work difficult will be assessed as being able to look for work some time in the future and will therefore be in the work-related activity group. They will lose their contributory ESA after a year. I know that many such people in my constituency will not get any benefit afterwards because they will probably live in a household that has other income. That need not be a large income, but just enough to put them above income support level, which is not particularly high. There is much talk about caps on benefits, but if a household is living on income-related benefits, it does not get a lot of money. Those people do not get £26,000. They get an awful lot less than that. If somebody is earning more than £10,000, there is a good chance that they will not get any benefit.
	In a constituency such as mine, which is reasonably affluent and wants people in work, there is a good chance that there will be a partner in the household who will be working. At the end of the year, the cancer patient or the person in the early stages of multiple sclerosis will lose their contributory ESA if their condition is not bad enough to put them into the support group. If that happened now, the one thing they would have is their DLA, but in future they may not have their PIP. They will have no independent income whatever. That is particularly worrying.
	Even more worrying is the fact that the Government have set up an unfairness in that some people will be able to keep their contributory ESA and others will not. If someone has a cataclysmic accident and becomes quadriplegic, they will go straight into the support group. If they have worked all their life up to that point and paid their national insurance, they will get their contributory ESA, as far as I can gather, for life.
	However, if someone falls out of work because they have just been diagnosed with MS that is quite far advanced but not far enough advanced to put them into the support group, they might be in the work group. Because they have MS, they might find it very difficult to get a job. That was why they fell out of their previous job and it would be difficult to get back into work. MS in its early stages can be a fluctuating condition. For the first year, that individual will receive contributory ESA, and the next year they will not because they have a working partner, but what will happen in year three or four when they are reassessed and go into the support group? Will they get their contributory ESA back? I do not think that they will, because they will not have made national insurance contributions for two years, having been out of work for that time. Perhaps that Minister could clarify that.
	There is a danger in all this of setting up a two-tier system for contributory benefit, which would be particularly unfair on those with slowly degenerative diseases, who fall out of work some time before they are classified as severely disabled and before the work obligation is taken off their shoulders.

Anne Begg: Much of Monday’s debate was about the fact that the regulations for PIP, for housing benefit and for universal credit do not exist, so it is difficult to judge exactly what will happen to individuals.
	There is also a fear among disabled people, because the Government sometimes take a simplistic view of what a disability might be. Disability living allowance was quite clear, because it was to cover the extra costs of disability, but one worry is that, under the PIP proposals, aids will be taken into consideration. The implication is that, if someone has an aid, they do not have the extra costs associated with their disability—that somehow the aid will miraculously take away those costs.
	It has been said—the Minister did so in front of the Work and Pensions Committee—that, if a wheelchair-using Olympic athlete has a university degree, it is reasonable to place some work obligations on them. That might be the case, but being an Olympic athlete who needs a wheelchair does not take away the need for an adapted car. They still need the car, the wider parking space, to build the ramps to get into their house, the adapted shower that the local authority’s facilities grant often does not pay for, and the adapted bathroom.
	In many cases, therefore, aids and adaptations do not take away the need for extra money. In fact, people with disabilities sometimes need the extra money to run some of those aids, such as an electric wheelchair and the extra costs that that entails, or an electric buggy that gets them around the shops. Rarely are such aids supplied by the NHS or, indeed, by the local authority, and that is why DLA was such a good benefit—because people could choose how they used it in order to fulfil their needs and lead an independent life.
	If disabled people have work obligations placed on them, they will need extra money for travel costs. I could be as fit as possible and have the best super-duper wheelchair in the world, but with the best will in the world I am still not going to be able to get on the underground. It just will not happen, so we need to ensure that we get PIP right, and to ensure that it enables disabled people and does not hinder them.
	Disability living allowance, particularly the mobility element, acts not only as a passport but as a proxy for all sorts of other things. Local authorities and organisations such as railway companies and cinemas use an individual’s qualification for upper-rate mobility allowance as a proxy for the fact that they must be disabled and therefore qualify for a disabled railcard, a disabled cinema ticket or a blue badge—or, in my local authority, a green badge, for which we also have to pay 20 quid a year, so it is not as though we are getting it for nothing. That means that people do not have to be assessed time and again, which makes things much easier. For many people, the knowledge that they have been assessed and qualify for upper-rate mobility allowance is more valuable than the money. I would not say that the money is not important—of course it is—but access to a blue badge with reasonable ease is also incredibly valuable.
	I hope that the Government will look again at how they are introducing PIP. I will support my hon. Friends’ amendment on the withdrawal of the upper-rate mobility PIP from those in residential homes. I hope that the Minister can calm some of the fears that disabled people are experiencing. They fear that if the Government do not get this right, then instead of being able to get out of their homes and go to work, they will be stuck there and have a life that is not as fulfilling and worth while as it is at the moment.

Jeremy Corbyn: I will be brief because many other hon. Members wish to speak, and under the timetabling motion we have to conclude by 6 pm, which is very inadequate given the seriousness of the issues. I shall speak specifically to amendments 43, 76 and 77. Amendment 43 was tabled by my Front Bench colleagues and I am happy to support it. I have added my name to it and I hope that they have noted that. Amendments 76 and 77 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg).
	This morning, I was at a commendable place known as Centre 404 in Islington, which provides support and activity for those with physical disabilities and learning difficulties, as well as support for their carers and families. It has been going for 60 years and is a very successful and effective organisation. The large numbers of people there this morning were discussing the introduction of PIPs and the issues surrounding carers week. Before we go into the details of the amendments, we should think for a moment about the enormous amount of work done by carers, who are inadequately recompensed and save the economy vast sums of money. If they were they not doing this work and giving up their careers and lives to care for those who desperately need their help and support, that care would simply not be provided and the costs to the state would be far greater, so we should recognise the economic contribution they make in a decent and humane way.
	The Minister said that I conflated the question of jobseeker’s allowance interviews with PIPs. In a sense I did, because I was drawing attention to how people were dragged in for interview. For example, a lady told me—she is a much respected member of the community active on these issues—that her doubly incontinent adult daughter, who has learning difficulties, was told to go to a jobcentre for a jobseeker’s allowance work interview. It is expensive, unpleasant, wasteful, stressful for everyone concerned and an utter and total waste of time, and considerable damage and humiliation is caused to the individual and their family. That is why amendment 43, which would exempt those with prescribed medical conditions, would be a sensible, important and useful change to the Bill.
	The Disability Alliance described to me how PIPs are likely to come in and how the assessments will take place, and the word that kept recurring was “continual”—continual prompting, continual help, continual assistance, continual support—which is interesting, because a person with a sporadic mental health difficulty does not need
	absolutely continual help and support, yet they do need help and support on a continuing basis. Do they then lose out on PIPs?

Peter Bottomley: Whether or not amendment 43 is needed, I am quite sure that the officials and others who do the assessments would not expect people with those conditions to be able to go to work. I do not think that this would be a great problem in practice; however, there is always a problem at the boundary.
	When I was getting on the Jubilee line this lunchtime I met a young man in a wheelchair—in fact, he turned out not to be that young, because 20 years ago he was helping to build the Jubilee line. He said, “What do you do?” “I work at the House of Commons,” I replied. “Are there any jobs there?” he asked. “650,” I said. “They come up every five years.” He said, “I’m a cook.” “There’s no reason why a cook can’t be a Member of Parliament as well,” I said. I did not ask him whether he lived at home, in a hospital or in a residential care home, or whether his residence was in a home with others.
	Earlier this afternoon, I spoke indirectly—I will now speak directly—about St Bridget’s in Rustington, the place mentioned in the first line of the second verse of “The Gnu Song” by Michael Flanders. For those with long memories, “The Gnu Song” comes when he is talking about someone parking a car across his dropped curb with “GNU” on the registration plate. There are people in Rustington who live in their own homes, and others who also live in their own homes, but who share it with others. The definitional problem is just as great as it might be at the Princess Marina home—again in
	Rustington—which is a Royal Air Force benevolent fund home that is dual registered. Part of it counts as a hospital, part of it counts as a home and part of it counts as a residence. Incidentally, “residential homes” are not defined in the legislation; rather, it talks about “care homes”.
	In Worthing, in the other part of my constituency, there is Gifford house—the Queen Alexandra hospital home—which is not just for former service personnel, but for many others. Although I have not had representations from them, I do not want to exclude them from consideration. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for kindly coming to St Bridget’s—the Leonard Cheshire home—among her many visits. I pay tribute to the people who live there, their families and my hon. Friend the Minister, because it was one of the best meetings that I have seen for a long time.
	I trust my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Minister and those working with them to come up with the right answer. My preference is for amendment 42 to be agreed to, and then for the Government to come forward with their solution to the problem after they have received the result of the review. They can then come back, either here or in another place, and make an adjustment if they choose to do so. At the moment, however, the way I read the legislation is that someone whose residence happens to be in, say, St Bridget’s—this is not exclusive to St Bridget’s or Leonard Cheshire homes generally—could easily be excluded.
	I shall not make the sort of speech that I might make in opposition, about how the Henry VIII clause in clause 83(4)(e) allows
	“such other services as may be prescribed”
	to be covered, nor shall I go on about subsections (5) or (6), which would allow almost anybody to be divorced under this legislation. However, I believe that we can trust the Government and that they are setting about this in a way that is rational. However, unless the legislation is amended or we receive other assurances, this is not legislation that this House ought to pass.
	Dorothy Sayers, in her book “Unpopular Opinions”, distinguishes between the English—by which she meant the British—and, say, the French by saying that whereas they believe in equality, we believe in fairness. There are currently three issues where fairness concerns me, and this is one of them. Another is the question of those women born in the mid-1950s losing more than a year’s pension, and another is overseas pensioners in the old dominions or elsewhere who cannot get pension increases. We have to take those issues one by one. I believe that the Government will solve the problem of the extra unfairness for those women born in the 1950s. I want the Government to find the solution to the problem that we are discussing in this debate, and later we can come to the overseas pensioners.
	On the subject of this debate, why should we necessarily risk solving the so-called overlap by taking away the higher-level mobility component, rather than taking away what the county council might otherwise provide, which is a far smaller amount? I met a woman in a wheelchair, like the man I met on the underground—he said that he was interested in politics, so I gave him yesterday’s Hansard to cheer him up—who wanted to go to her father’s birthday party and then attend a
	college course. Those two journeys by themselves, at the subsidised rate of the St Bridget’s minibus, would have exhausted her money if she had not had the mobility allowance.
	Obviously people’s circumstances vary, but rather than make a long speech—we have heard rather too many of those this afternoon—let me end by saying that if amendment 42 comes to a vote, I shall vote for it. I trust that the Government will come back and make things plain in legislation, rather than our having to rely on positive resolutions on statutory instruments or the results of the consultation or assessment that they are currently undertaking.

Tom Clarke: I very much regret that that Minister did not give way to me on the one occasion that I asked her to do so, particularly because I had planned to ask her to make an apology. I also invite the Secretary of State—if he would just listen to the debate for a moment—to join in making that apology to the 80,000 people living in residential homes who have been threatened since the comprehensive spending review with the removal of the mobility element of their disability living allowance.
	I first raised this matter in a debate in Westminster Hall on 30 November. The Minister responded to that debate, so she cannot claim that she did not know what the issues were. In a moment, I shall talk about the remarkable review that very few people know anything about. People living in residential homes, and their Members of Parliament, can tell her exactly what the situation is, even in the absence of a review. We do not like the idea that 80,000 people have been led up to the top of the hill and marched down again as a result of the various approaches of the coalition Government.

Tom Clarke: I am talking about Ministers. The Chief Secretary did not give way, because I was going to ask him whether in the Budget vote we were being asked to support the page in the Red Book that took more than £470 million away from the people we are discussing today or a section that said we were going to have a review. Answer came there none. We have had statements; we have had a Budget; we have had the Prime Minister’s comments; and we have had the Bill that is being thrown at us today— yet 80,000 people still do not know what the future holds for them. That is wholly unacceptable.
	As a result of the measures, 80,000 people will suffer. People on higher rate DLA mobility stand to lose out by £51.40 a week, which will impact on their ability to exercise independence and choice—things that we are told again and again by the Government they support when it comes to community care.

Mark Durkan: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and commend him on his contribution. Is not the situation he describes not even more grotesquely surreal when one considers that, whatever form the review takes, people in local government and those running care homes are being questioned by the Government not about the funding crisis undermining the financial certainty for those care homes, which has people suffocating with worry and dread about what will happen to them, to their relatives and to the staff, but in pursuit of a mythical notion that duplicate payments are being made in respect of the mobility component and contracts with care homes? Should not the Government be addressing the real crisis that is facing care homes and not the nonsense with which they have obsessed themselves?

Mark Durkan: Does my hon. Friend agree that if people should be scared by anything, it should be not her question but the lack of the right answer from Government Ministers?

Stephen Timms: Can the Secretary of State confirm, however, that people receiving oral chemotherapy and oral radio therapy are in the work-related activity group, and that if they are halfway through their treatment and it gets to a year, they will lose all their contributory benefit?

Iain Duncan Smith: If the hon. Lady had looked at what the cap covers, she would know that those on tax credit will be exempt, as will those on DLA, widows and others who are in difficulties. The cap is about those who we believe should be able to go to work but are not doing so. Of course, this would just be all stick if it were not for the fact that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) had recently introduced the biggest back-to-work programme this country has ever seen, to support those in greatest difficulty. Universal credit is about helping to improve people’s incomes when we get them back into work with a bigger incentive. We are striking a fair balance by doing all that while also placing some expectations on those who are waiting to go to work.
	That is also the point of the next bit, which is about conditionality and sanctions. The Bill places a level of responsibility back into the system by strengthening our conditionality and sanctions regime and requiring all claimants to accept a claimant commitment setting out their individual responsibilities—a sort of contract that will enable them to understand that they have certain obligations and that there are certain things that we are obligated to do for them. That is fair. Many claimants I have spoken to out there are completely confused about what they should or should not be doing.
	When those responsibilities are not met, we will have the power to apply a robust set of sanctions, which will be made clear to the claimant at the beginning. Opposition Front-Bench Members who were in the previous Government will know from going round jobcentres that claimants often still profess, even at the last moment, to having no knowledge of the fact that they will face sanctions if they do not comply. So we are going to let them know early exactly what the sanctions will be. As with universal credit, they will then have a clearer understanding of what they are meant to be doing.
	The next area, which we have dealt with in some detail, involves the personal independence payment. We are bringing more responsibility to the system, but I believe that we are also improving support for those who are able to work and for those who are not. Disability support is an issue. The Bill makes critical changes to the system, and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) made a sterling effort to explain them in Committee and on Report.
	The changes to the current system of disability support will ensure that disability living allowance is no longer awarded on the basis of subjective and inconsistent decisions. I hope that all hon. Members will recognise that this is a bold attempt to bring this area of benefit up to date and to ensure that those who are not getting what they should will do so, and that those, however many there are, who are getting too much or not the right amount will get that adjusted as well. The truth is that this will be based on their ability to live their lives.
	I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister about the checks involved. The DLA will be replaced in total by a personal independence payment, which will be based, for the first time, on regular and objective assessments of need.
	This brings me to perhaps the biggest thing in the Bill: universal credit. This lies at the heart of all our reforms. It involves the principle that it should no longer be possible for people to be better off on benefits than in work, or for people to fear moving into work. I say “fear” because people are often concerned because they simply cannot tell whether they will be better off or worse off in work. No longer are we going to try to pick the number of hours that somebody should be working; rather, we will say to them, “You must make that choice, in line with work, relevant to your caring responsibilities and all the other issues that affect you.” This is a bold reform to help people to improve their chances and give them the assistance they need. That goes alongside the Work programme, as I said earlier, which will support all those people who are trying desperately to make the best of their difficult conditions and get back to work.

Iain Duncan Smith: The right hon. Gentleman refers to complexities—he and I have discussed many issues before—and this present system is so complex that if he were in the situation of many of the people in his constituency, he would find it incredibly difficult to know whether or not they are better off. The principle behind the Bill is that we must try to achieve that. If he wants to know my honest opinion, I believe that we will be able to make it happen. We are working hard to make sure that this medium-level change to IT works out. I recognise it as such a change. I have had conversations about it with his Front-Bench colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). Our views may differ slightly, but the reality is that the process has to happen; IT development is part of the process. I give the right hon. Gentleman as much of a guarantee as I can that we will deliver it—right and on time.
	Some 2.7 million households will be better off as a result of the universal credit and almost 85% of the gains—I hope that Opposition Members will support this aspect—will go ultimately to the bottom 40% of people in the income distribution. I would have thought that they would want to support that. My concern throughout the debates—I now want to bring my comments rapidly to a conclusion—has been that it is not at all clear what exactly the Opposition support and what they do not support. By their actions and by what they say, there is no commonality.
	The Opposition tabled more than 200 amendments in Committee, but voted on them only 16 times. They have complained that we did not allow enough time for consideration of issues on Report and then, on the day before yesterday, they proceeded to talk for more than an hour on amendments that they did not even push to a vote. If they had not done that, they would easily have had a chance to debate some of these other areas.
	When it comes to spending commitments, the Opposition do not seem to know whether they are coming or going. They would have us believe that they would have taken responsible decisions on the economy, but if they had had their way in Committee, the amendments would have entailed extra spending commitments running into billions of pounds. Not once have they said that they approve of any of the changes or the savings within the scope of the Bill. It was all the more surprising when, the other day, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill complained—irony of ironies—that the housing benefit bill is apparently set to increase in the course of this Parliament. Imagine that—the man who watched while housing benefit spending crashed through the roof, nearly doubling in 10 years, and was set under his Government to rise by a further £2.5 billion in this Parliament alone, has started to tell us that somehow we are not being harsh enough. What a contrast with his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) in her place beside him, who claimed that our changes to housing benefit
	“would lead to social cleansing on an unprecedented scale.”
	Frankly, they need to get their act together, as they do not seem to know whether they are in favour or against cuts—or whether they simply do not agree with anything.
	The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill wants to speak, so I shall finish. These measures have always been about welfare reform that forms a contract with the people of this country. It is a promise on our part to provide a simpler, fairer system that protects the most vulnerable and makes work pay; and a promise on the part of those who are claiming benefits to play their part, to look for work whenever they are able to do so, and to take some of the responsibility that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)spoke of just two days ago—although half of his party does not agree with him. As I said before, this is about fairness to recipients and fairness to the hard-pressed taxpayer. On that basis, I ask all Members to get behind this Bill, and perhaps the Opposition will make up their minds about whether or not they are in favour of this reform.

Mark Garnier: I thank the Minister for his time this evening to hear the case for the Kidderminster enterprise zone bid. I am pleased to be able to hold this debate because, I am passionate about the future of the local economy, not just in Kidderminster or even in Wyre Forest, but in the whole of Worcestershire.
	What we are debating this evening is more than just Kidderminster’s enterprise zone bid. It is about how the Worcestershire local enterprise partnership has come together with enthusiasm and considered the many submissions from across the county, and how the business community has worked through the options and come up with what it believes is the best possible enterprise zone bid for the whole county. I am delighted to see so many Members present, and members of the business community in Worcestershire have come down this evening to show their support for this incredibly important bid.
	Before I speak more specifically about Kidderminster, I want to speak about Worcestershire as a whole. I do this because it is important to remember that it is the Worcestershire LEP that has looked carefully at the county and decided that the best option for the county—not just for Wyre Forest—is the Kidderminster business enterprise zone. It is important that it becomes an enterprise zone because it is a strong and early bidder for a county-wide enterprise partnership that will bring together business, civic and third sector leaders as an effective advocate for the whole county.
	Worcestershire has around 560,000 residents, and across the county there are a number of strong but localised industrial specialisms. We have agriculture and food processing in Wychavon and the Malvern hills, research and development in Malvern and automotive-related industries in Bromsgrove and Redditch.

Mark Garnier: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The whole point about an enterprise zone is that it will not only help people in the immediate vicinity, but attract many people and a lot of economic activity from a fairly wide area—a point I will develop later in
	my speech. The economy of the south of the county looks to the rural and research-based drivers in her constituency, and the north of the county looks to the black country as its engine for growth. It is for this reason that strengthening the advanced manufacturing base in the north of the county will draw down the manufacturing prosperity of the black country into Worcestershire.
	The issues Worcestershire faces are important and the LEP has already got to grips with the major economic priorities and challenges that the county will face in the coming years. Crucially, private sector employment shrunk over the past decade by 1%. This trend was more marked in the north of the county, with Kidderminster seeing an 8% reduction in private sector employment and Redditch seeing a 14% reduction. That said, Redditch has a greater proportion of manufacturing jobs in the region, which is encouraging.
	Moreover, work by the West Midlands Regional Observatory shows that Kidderminster, and to a lesser extent Redditch, suffer from problems relating to longer-term restructuring and job losses from the contraction of their industrial base, lower employment rates and higher claimant levels, especially among young people, and a higher proportion of the working-age population having no qualifications at all. To deal with those issues, the LEP sees restructuring the local economy away from public sector jobs, supporting and growing the tourism industry, and building on the industrial assets in the north as the key priorities. It was with this in mind that the Worcestershire LEP identified Kidderminster as the unanimous option for the Worcestershire bid for an enterprise zone.
	The town of Kidderminster was once the hub of the world’s carpet industry, with some 20,000 people employed in that key industry as recently as the ’70s and ’80s. Carpets declined as the preferred floor covering, although I am pleased to say that that trend is now in reverse.

Karen Bradley: I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. It is a great relief to me, as I represent a Staffordshire constituency, that we are no longer under a regional development agency, as what works in once place in the west midlands does not necessarily work in Staffordshire, so I am delighted that we now have the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent LEP. However, I have to stand up for Minton floor tiles and say that, although carpets in Kidderminster are important, floor tiles are equally so.

Ian Austin: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and commend him on his valuable work for and great contribution to the all-party group that we have established for the regional economy. Does he agree that it is not just the towns of Stourport, Bewdley and Kidderminster that will benefit from the establishment of the enterprise zone, but the black country towns of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton? If greater enterprise, more jobs and prosperity can be brought to areas such as Kidderminster, that will only benefit the constituents I represent just a few miles away in the black country, and that is why I assure the hon. Gentleman that the bid will receive my support and, no doubt, that of other black country MPs.